Sins of the Past
Title: Sins of the Past
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Rose/Scorpius
Genre: Drama
Word Count: 2,424
Summary: Scorpius is determined to uncover the secrets his father has been keeping from him.
Written for queenb23morefor help_japan. The prompt she requested was: "Photographs"
*~*
Nothing weighs on us so heavily as a secret. - Jean de La Fontaine
It was a chaotic day in Herbology. The sixth year students had been set the laborious task of harvesting Snargaluff pods from the horrible, and often violent, stumps that housed them.
"My dad hates these things," Rose said, as she shoved her hand into the hole that opened in the center of the Snargaluff stump. "My Uncle George planted one in our garden once as a joke. It took my dad all day to pull it out. He was covered in scratches and got a black eye."
"I'd never seen one before today," Scorpius said, as he worked to keep two branches from breaking his grip and hitting him, or Rose, in the face.
"You haven't missed much," she said. "But then again, my mum once told me that they can be quite useful. The tubers inside the pods are used in a number of potions and the stumps themselves can be used for protection."
"That's ridiculous," said Jeremiah Smith, an annoying Hufflepuff that Rose absolutely could not stand, as he approached their table. "How can a plant be used for protection?"
"Well if you actually did any work in this class, you'd know," Scorpius said, leaning back just in time as one of the branches took a swipe at his face.
"The plants were used-hang on, I got it!" Rose held up a large green pod and placed it in a bowl. "Snargaluff stumps have a natural defense mechanism in their thorny branches. Professor Longbottom said that during the Battle of Hogwarts they dropped the pods on their enemies. The pods broke open and the tubers distracted the Death Eaters; it was a brilliant idea, really."
"Good of you to explain it to Malfoy here," Smith sneered. "It must be nice for him to see that battle from a different perspective."
"What are you on about?" Scorpius said. He backed away from the plant, and it returned to its dormant state, looking like a harmless tree stump. As he sat down, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and removed the goggles he wore to protect his eyes.
"I mean we all know what your family's role in the war was, don't we?"
Scorpius's face turned an ugly shade of purple.
"Just ignore him," Rose said, removing her own goggles. "He's not worth it."
"I can't believe you, of all people, are defending him, Weasley," said Smith.
"Why wouldn't I?" she said fiercely.
"My father says his family was full of Death Eaters. I'm guessing the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It's just a bit strange, I suppose, that you'd be friends with someone like that."
Scorpius lunged at Jeremiah.
"Is there a problem here?" Professor Longbottom asked as he approached their table.
"Not at all, sir," Rose said calmly, pulling Scorpius back to his seat.
"Mr. Smith, if you'll return to your table, please," Professor Longbottom said.
"Yes, sir," he said, looking rather pleased with himself as he strode away.
Professor Longbottom gave Rose a small smile before turning to observe some of her classmates.
"You shouldn't listen to him," Rose said to Scorpius. "He has no room to talk about families. My dad has always said that his dad is a complete arse, and that's obviously an inherited trait."
Scorpius nodded. Still glaring in Smith's direction, he picked up his spade and began to use the sharp edge to stab viscously at the Snargaluff pod. Rose watched him, wondering what, if anything, she could say to make him feel better. Finally, Scorpius punctured the pod and it burst open; light green tubers wriggled out into the bowl.
"He's right, you know," Scorpius said quietly. "My grandfather was a Death Eater."
Rose was momentarily speechless but quickly recovered her voice. "Really?"
"Sometimes I think my grandfather still hopes things will go back to how they were before," he said, his face flushing. "He was quite well-respected before the war…by all the wrong people, I suppose."
"Do your parents ever talk about it?"
"No," he said. "Every time I ask, my dad changes the subject. I've always wondered if there's something he's ashamed of and doesn't want me to know about."
"Not necessarily. Maybe he doesn't speak of it because nothing happened."
Scorpius shook his head. "I don’t think so. If that were true, why wouldn't he just say so? Why is there so much secrecy surrounding it?"
"I don't know," Rose said.
"I've been thinking that maybe it's time for me to try to find out the truth," he said. "Do you think you can help me?"
"Help you with what?" she asked.
"Help me to do some research," he said. "There has to be information about the war in the library."
"I'm sure there is, but…"
His expression darkened. "Look, if you don't want to help me, I'll just look for myself."
"No, I'll help," she said quickly. "It's just… Scorpius, what if you find out something you didn't want to know? Once you know, there will no turning back."
"I need to know. Good or bad, it's my past. It's my family."
Rose gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "When do you want to start?"
"After class," he said. "Do you mind skipping lunch?"
"Not at all."
*~*
The door of the library swung closed behind them, cutting off the noise from the boisterous crowd of students going down to the Great Hall for lunch. As much as she wanted to join them-she hadn't eaten much at breakfast-she knew this was important to Scorpius. She was determined to help him and maybe in the process find some answers of her own. Between her dad's wildly exaggerated tales, and her mother's much more subdued accounts of what took place, which she suspected were highly edited, she longed to know the truth.
"Where should we look first?" she asked.
"I'm not sure."
They began to search and soon returned with a collection of books written about Voldemort and the two wars that resulted in his rise to power. But after skimming the pages, they didn't find much that was of any use to them. They found a few mentions of her family, but nothing about his. Frustrated, Scorpius got up and began to search the bookcases again.
Rose found very few details in the books they had gathered. In fact, most of the books seemed to repeat the same information. She was very surprised that there weren't more personal accounts of what happened from people who had lived during the war and had fought in the final battle. She thought about what her mother had always said about the importance of passing on these stories.
"Look what I found," Scorpius said, interrupting her thoughts as he used a Hover Charm to guide several large, dusty boxes onto the table.
"What are they?" Rose said, standing to examine the boxes closer.
"Newspapers," he said. "There are boxes and boxes of them back there. Look at the dates on the side. I think this could be it."
"Wonderful," she said, removing the lid of a box and pulling out a stack of yellowing issues of the Daily Prophet. She noticed right away that the dates she was looking at were too early: June 1996, but a headline caught her eye: He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Returns. As she scanned the article, a group of eleven photos just below the fold of the front page caught her eye. Eleven Death Eaters had broken into the Ministry and as a result had been sentenced to Azkaban. One photo in particular jumped out at her. It was that of a haughty-looking blond man with a pointed chin, sneering contemptuously at her. The caption said his name was Lucius Malfoy, Scorpius's grandfather. She could see the family resemblance in his sharp features, but this man appeared to be hard and cold, and she knew Scorpius to be anything but.
"Scorpius," she said, reluctantly handing him the paper.
He frowned as he studied it. "It's a start. He obviously didn't stay in Azkaban for very long. The Battle of Hogwarts was two years later."
Rose continued to search through the newspapers in the box. When she couldn't find anything else in the stack she had, she reached into the box nearest to Scorpius. She flipped through the newspapers, and was pleased when she saw a group of familiar faces beaming up at her and waving.
"Look at this!" Rose said, with a huge smile on her face. She looked up and saw that Scorpius was staring morosely at another issue. "What's wrong?"
He flung the newspaper onto the table. "I knew he was hiding something."
Rose looked at him in confusion, then picked up the newspaper. "Is this…"
"Just read it," he said.
It wasn't a long article, and she was a little surprised that he had found it. It was at the bottom of the broadsheet, under an article about a former Ministry undersecretary who was being tried for horrible war crimes. Most of the page was taken over by a large photograph of a horrible, sneering toad-looking woman.
The article Scorpius had found was about the acquittal of the Malfoys. They had been tried for their involvement in the war. Because Lucius Malfoy was a known Death Eater, their presence at the Battle of Hogwarts had been highly suspect. However, Rose's Uncle Harry had testified that while the Malfoys had been present at the Battle of Hogwarts, none of them had been armed at any time during the battle. Furthermore, the Malfoys had also provided information that led to the arrest of several dangerous Death Eaters who were still at large. As a result, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, Scorpius's grandmother and father, were acquitted outright. Lucius Malfoy was also acquitted of involvement during the war; however, he had been sent to Azkaban to complete an earlier sentence for breaking into the Ministry two years before.
The article mentioned that many people did still believe that the Malfoys ranked highly among the Death Eaters, and there was still a lot of suspicion surrounding what they had done during the war. Rose was stunned. It was no wonder Scorpius was so upset; this article had raised far more questions than it had answered.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly once she'd finished reading the article.
"Not really," he said, continuing to flip through the newspapers.
"But this is good news, isn't it?" Rose asked. "They were acquitted."
He snorted humorlessly. "Right. Rose, it doesn't matter if they were acquitted. They were obviously involved in some way. Anyway, it sounds like they just couldn't find something to pin on them."
"You're not like them; you're different."
"Am I?" he asked, not looking up.
"Yes, you are. You don't believe in that pureblood nonsense."
"It doesn't matter," Scorpius said, his gray eyes flashing in anger. "It's guilt by association, isn't it? Isn't that what Jeremiah Smith said? 'The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.'"
"Jeremiah is a prat. No one else thinks that."
"It's really easy for you to say so," he said, raising his voice. He lifted up the Daily Prophet she'd been looking at with a large photo of her parents and Uncle Harry receiving the Order of Merlin, First Class. "These are your parents-war heroes. Everyone looks up to them. It's something you can be proud of. It's different for me. My family associated with Death Eaters. I feel like everyone is waiting for me to turn out to be just like them."
She placed her hand on his. "Nonsense. The people who know you, who care about you, know you aren't like that. Who cares what anyone else thinks?"
"I had always looked up to my dad," he said, still seething with anger. "But he was there. He was there in the battle, and he did nothing."
"He didn't have a wand," Rose said. "That's what it says in the article."
"It doesn't matter," Scorpius said, sounding defeated. "Wand or no wand, the fact that he was on trial at all calls his loyalty into question."
"You don't know that. If your grandfather was a Death Eater, maybe they automatically grouped your dad in with them. Like you said, maybe it was guilt by association."
"I have to find out more," he said. "There has to be more information than this."
"Where?" she asked. "We've already looked through all the most recent books here."
"There are other ways to get information."
Rose was alarmed by his words, worried he might put himself in danger to find out. "Maybe you should ask your dad."
Scorpius frowned. "No, I'm not asking him anything. He kept all this from me all this time. I can't even trust him to tell me the truth."
"What will you do?"
"Christmas holidays are coming up. Maybe I can dig up more information at the Ministry," he said.
"The records room at the Ministry is enormous. It's about ten times larger than the library here."
"That's good," he said. "There's bound to be more information on this trial."
She knew there would be no talking him out of it.
"I could come with you if you need help," she said tentatively.
The gloomy expression on Scorpius's face began to clear, and he shot her a small smile. "You would help me?"
"Of course," she said brightly. "My mum has taken me to the records room so many times. I know how it's all organized. I can help you find where to start looking."
"That would be brilliant," he said. "Thanks, Rose…For everything."
Rose blushed. "What are friends for?"
She noticed a similar flush creeping up on his neck. He held her gaze so intensely, and she subconsciously held her breath, her heart and mind racing. Disappointingly, he soon looked away, clearing his throat. "We had better hurry if we want to make it to Ancient Runes on time."
Rose nodded and began to stack the newspapers back in the boxes; then, Scorpius returned the boxes to wherever he had found them. As they stepped out into the corridor and blended into the stream of students heading in all directions to their next lessons, Rose noticed that Scorpius appeared to be lost in thought. She knew that he was preoccupied with what he had found and what he hadn't. She only hoped that they could find something at the Ministry to put his mind at ease or at least give him the answers he sought.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Rose/Scorpius
Genre: Drama
Word Count: 2,424
Summary: Scorpius is determined to uncover the secrets his father has been keeping from him.
Written for queenb23morefor help_japan. The prompt she requested was: "Photographs"
*~*
Nothing weighs on us so heavily as a secret. - Jean de La Fontaine
It was a chaotic day in Herbology. The sixth year students had been set the laborious task of harvesting Snargaluff pods from the horrible, and often violent, stumps that housed them.
"My dad hates these things," Rose said, as she shoved her hand into the hole that opened in the center of the Snargaluff stump. "My Uncle George planted one in our garden once as a joke. It took my dad all day to pull it out. He was covered in scratches and got a black eye."
"I'd never seen one before today," Scorpius said, as he worked to keep two branches from breaking his grip and hitting him, or Rose, in the face.
"You haven't missed much," she said. "But then again, my mum once told me that they can be quite useful. The tubers inside the pods are used in a number of potions and the stumps themselves can be used for protection."
"That's ridiculous," said Jeremiah Smith, an annoying Hufflepuff that Rose absolutely could not stand, as he approached their table. "How can a plant be used for protection?"
"Well if you actually did any work in this class, you'd know," Scorpius said, leaning back just in time as one of the branches took a swipe at his face.
"The plants were used-hang on, I got it!" Rose held up a large green pod and placed it in a bowl. "Snargaluff stumps have a natural defense mechanism in their thorny branches. Professor Longbottom said that during the Battle of Hogwarts they dropped the pods on their enemies. The pods broke open and the tubers distracted the Death Eaters; it was a brilliant idea, really."
"Good of you to explain it to Malfoy here," Smith sneered. "It must be nice for him to see that battle from a different perspective."
"What are you on about?" Scorpius said. He backed away from the plant, and it returned to its dormant state, looking like a harmless tree stump. As he sat down, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and removed the goggles he wore to protect his eyes.
"I mean we all know what your family's role in the war was, don't we?"
Scorpius's face turned an ugly shade of purple.
"Just ignore him," Rose said, removing her own goggles. "He's not worth it."
"I can't believe you, of all people, are defending him, Weasley," said Smith.
"Why wouldn't I?" she said fiercely.
"My father says his family was full of Death Eaters. I'm guessing the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It's just a bit strange, I suppose, that you'd be friends with someone like that."
Scorpius lunged at Jeremiah.
"Is there a problem here?" Professor Longbottom asked as he approached their table.
"Not at all, sir," Rose said calmly, pulling Scorpius back to his seat.
"Mr. Smith, if you'll return to your table, please," Professor Longbottom said.
"Yes, sir," he said, looking rather pleased with himself as he strode away.
Professor Longbottom gave Rose a small smile before turning to observe some of her classmates.
"You shouldn't listen to him," Rose said to Scorpius. "He has no room to talk about families. My dad has always said that his dad is a complete arse, and that's obviously an inherited trait."
Scorpius nodded. Still glaring in Smith's direction, he picked up his spade and began to use the sharp edge to stab viscously at the Snargaluff pod. Rose watched him, wondering what, if anything, she could say to make him feel better. Finally, Scorpius punctured the pod and it burst open; light green tubers wriggled out into the bowl.
"He's right, you know," Scorpius said quietly. "My grandfather was a Death Eater."
Rose was momentarily speechless but quickly recovered her voice. "Really?"
"Sometimes I think my grandfather still hopes things will go back to how they were before," he said, his face flushing. "He was quite well-respected before the war…by all the wrong people, I suppose."
"Do your parents ever talk about it?"
"No," he said. "Every time I ask, my dad changes the subject. I've always wondered if there's something he's ashamed of and doesn't want me to know about."
"Not necessarily. Maybe he doesn't speak of it because nothing happened."
Scorpius shook his head. "I don’t think so. If that were true, why wouldn't he just say so? Why is there so much secrecy surrounding it?"
"I don't know," Rose said.
"I've been thinking that maybe it's time for me to try to find out the truth," he said. "Do you think you can help me?"
"Help you with what?" she asked.
"Help me to do some research," he said. "There has to be information about the war in the library."
"I'm sure there is, but…"
His expression darkened. "Look, if you don't want to help me, I'll just look for myself."
"No, I'll help," she said quickly. "It's just… Scorpius, what if you find out something you didn't want to know? Once you know, there will no turning back."
"I need to know. Good or bad, it's my past. It's my family."
Rose gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "When do you want to start?"
"After class," he said. "Do you mind skipping lunch?"
"Not at all."
*~*
The door of the library swung closed behind them, cutting off the noise from the boisterous crowd of students going down to the Great Hall for lunch. As much as she wanted to join them-she hadn't eaten much at breakfast-she knew this was important to Scorpius. She was determined to help him and maybe in the process find some answers of her own. Between her dad's wildly exaggerated tales, and her mother's much more subdued accounts of what took place, which she suspected were highly edited, she longed to know the truth.
"Where should we look first?" she asked.
"I'm not sure."
They began to search and soon returned with a collection of books written about Voldemort and the two wars that resulted in his rise to power. But after skimming the pages, they didn't find much that was of any use to them. They found a few mentions of her family, but nothing about his. Frustrated, Scorpius got up and began to search the bookcases again.
Rose found very few details in the books they had gathered. In fact, most of the books seemed to repeat the same information. She was very surprised that there weren't more personal accounts of what happened from people who had lived during the war and had fought in the final battle. She thought about what her mother had always said about the importance of passing on these stories.
"Look what I found," Scorpius said, interrupting her thoughts as he used a Hover Charm to guide several large, dusty boxes onto the table.
"What are they?" Rose said, standing to examine the boxes closer.
"Newspapers," he said. "There are boxes and boxes of them back there. Look at the dates on the side. I think this could be it."
"Wonderful," she said, removing the lid of a box and pulling out a stack of yellowing issues of the Daily Prophet. She noticed right away that the dates she was looking at were too early: June 1996, but a headline caught her eye: He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Returns. As she scanned the article, a group of eleven photos just below the fold of the front page caught her eye. Eleven Death Eaters had broken into the Ministry and as a result had been sentenced to Azkaban. One photo in particular jumped out at her. It was that of a haughty-looking blond man with a pointed chin, sneering contemptuously at her. The caption said his name was Lucius Malfoy, Scorpius's grandfather. She could see the family resemblance in his sharp features, but this man appeared to be hard and cold, and she knew Scorpius to be anything but.
"Scorpius," she said, reluctantly handing him the paper.
He frowned as he studied it. "It's a start. He obviously didn't stay in Azkaban for very long. The Battle of Hogwarts was two years later."
Rose continued to search through the newspapers in the box. When she couldn't find anything else in the stack she had, she reached into the box nearest to Scorpius. She flipped through the newspapers, and was pleased when she saw a group of familiar faces beaming up at her and waving.
"Look at this!" Rose said, with a huge smile on her face. She looked up and saw that Scorpius was staring morosely at another issue. "What's wrong?"
He flung the newspaper onto the table. "I knew he was hiding something."
Rose looked at him in confusion, then picked up the newspaper. "Is this…"
"Just read it," he said.
It wasn't a long article, and she was a little surprised that he had found it. It was at the bottom of the broadsheet, under an article about a former Ministry undersecretary who was being tried for horrible war crimes. Most of the page was taken over by a large photograph of a horrible, sneering toad-looking woman.
The article Scorpius had found was about the acquittal of the Malfoys. They had been tried for their involvement in the war. Because Lucius Malfoy was a known Death Eater, their presence at the Battle of Hogwarts had been highly suspect. However, Rose's Uncle Harry had testified that while the Malfoys had been present at the Battle of Hogwarts, none of them had been armed at any time during the battle. Furthermore, the Malfoys had also provided information that led to the arrest of several dangerous Death Eaters who were still at large. As a result, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, Scorpius's grandmother and father, were acquitted outright. Lucius Malfoy was also acquitted of involvement during the war; however, he had been sent to Azkaban to complete an earlier sentence for breaking into the Ministry two years before.
The article mentioned that many people did still believe that the Malfoys ranked highly among the Death Eaters, and there was still a lot of suspicion surrounding what they had done during the war. Rose was stunned. It was no wonder Scorpius was so upset; this article had raised far more questions than it had answered.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly once she'd finished reading the article.
"Not really," he said, continuing to flip through the newspapers.
"But this is good news, isn't it?" Rose asked. "They were acquitted."
He snorted humorlessly. "Right. Rose, it doesn't matter if they were acquitted. They were obviously involved in some way. Anyway, it sounds like they just couldn't find something to pin on them."
"You're not like them; you're different."
"Am I?" he asked, not looking up.
"Yes, you are. You don't believe in that pureblood nonsense."
"It doesn't matter," Scorpius said, his gray eyes flashing in anger. "It's guilt by association, isn't it? Isn't that what Jeremiah Smith said? 'The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.'"
"Jeremiah is a prat. No one else thinks that."
"It's really easy for you to say so," he said, raising his voice. He lifted up the Daily Prophet she'd been looking at with a large photo of her parents and Uncle Harry receiving the Order of Merlin, First Class. "These are your parents-war heroes. Everyone looks up to them. It's something you can be proud of. It's different for me. My family associated with Death Eaters. I feel like everyone is waiting for me to turn out to be just like them."
She placed her hand on his. "Nonsense. The people who know you, who care about you, know you aren't like that. Who cares what anyone else thinks?"
"I had always looked up to my dad," he said, still seething with anger. "But he was there. He was there in the battle, and he did nothing."
"He didn't have a wand," Rose said. "That's what it says in the article."
"It doesn't matter," Scorpius said, sounding defeated. "Wand or no wand, the fact that he was on trial at all calls his loyalty into question."
"You don't know that. If your grandfather was a Death Eater, maybe they automatically grouped your dad in with them. Like you said, maybe it was guilt by association."
"I have to find out more," he said. "There has to be more information than this."
"Where?" she asked. "We've already looked through all the most recent books here."
"There are other ways to get information."
Rose was alarmed by his words, worried he might put himself in danger to find out. "Maybe you should ask your dad."
Scorpius frowned. "No, I'm not asking him anything. He kept all this from me all this time. I can't even trust him to tell me the truth."
"What will you do?"
"Christmas holidays are coming up. Maybe I can dig up more information at the Ministry," he said.
"The records room at the Ministry is enormous. It's about ten times larger than the library here."
"That's good," he said. "There's bound to be more information on this trial."
She knew there would be no talking him out of it.
"I could come with you if you need help," she said tentatively.
The gloomy expression on Scorpius's face began to clear, and he shot her a small smile. "You would help me?"
"Of course," she said brightly. "My mum has taken me to the records room so many times. I know how it's all organized. I can help you find where to start looking."
"That would be brilliant," he said. "Thanks, Rose…For everything."
Rose blushed. "What are friends for?"
She noticed a similar flush creeping up on his neck. He held her gaze so intensely, and she subconsciously held her breath, her heart and mind racing. Disappointingly, he soon looked away, clearing his throat. "We had better hurry if we want to make it to Ancient Runes on time."
Rose nodded and began to stack the newspapers back in the boxes; then, Scorpius returned the boxes to wherever he had found them. As they stepped out into the corridor and blended into the stream of students heading in all directions to their next lessons, Rose noticed that Scorpius appeared to be lost in thought. She knew that he was preoccupied with what he had found and what he hadn't. She only hoped that they could find something at the Ministry to put his mind at ease or at least give him the answers he sought.